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Sunday, 17 April 2016

DnD: Red Brand Shmed Brand Part 2

After much deliberation, Xavros takes out his attacker. Asher catches the blade thrown at him and retaliates but misses with his first strike! But while he's distracting them along with Dweezil's near miss, Celkini slides under the table, between Asher's legs and comes up behind the guards to drop caltrops at the door. Ben leaps onto the shoulders of one of the guards and successfully annoys him. Akilah steps in and misses. The caltrops affect one of the guards while the other attacks Asher, only to be DENIED. Because it's Asher, bitches! Then the wizard walks in, floating over the caltrops like wizard Jesus. He casts lightning fingers at Asher, who takes maximum damage.

A bugbear roars in through the south door and immediately attacks Akilah, hitting the half elf for 11 damage. The wizard follows up with a wave of his staff. Three magical missiles hit Celkini, Asher, and Akilah. Akilah siiiiighs. Celkini has great intentions:

But she ROLLS A FREAKING ONE BECAUSE HER HUSBAND JINXED HER. The reality is that the team is not in a good way. The wizard orders everyone to yield. Dweezil aquiesces immediately. Akilah mumbles her agreement before passing out. Celkini is still on fire. She is glaring at the wizard and it's taking everything Ben has to keep her in check until Dweezil drops by to wrestle her weapons from her. The remaining guards strip them of their weapons. The one guard Celkini tried to groin roughs her up, takes the rest of her weapons, and tosses her aside. She hisses angrily at him and imagines jumping on his face and clawing out his eyes.

The wizard orders them to follow the bugbear to incarceration. Asher helps Akilah along and they limp forward together. After some internal deliberation, Xavros finally follows grudgingly.

They are all taken to three jail cells, their attempt at escape and general troublemaking a complete failure.

There is an older woman and some teenagers already there. One looks pretty beat up. Dweezil interrogates the boy who doesn't seem to know how long he's been imprisoned. They learn that the boy and and his sister and mother are from the town and were captured to be sold into slavery because the father spoke out against the Red Brand.

Celkini is climbing the walls, literally, though Ben is trying to settle her down. The group decides they should finally rest for once. All the healers are conveniently in a cell away from Akilah. They use their Cure Wounds spells on themselves and on the boy, then they go to sleep.

During the night, one of the guard leaves the room while the other dozes off standing against the wall. Ben follows the first to see that the next room is empty and beyond that, the first guard is joining another drunken card game. Ben does not see their weapons. He returns and awakens Dweezil, but Dweezil doesn't want to do anything. Ben grunts and wakes up Celkini instead who immediately jumps to action. She squeezes through the bars and sneaks a shortsword and thief's tools away from the guard. Dweezil frees himself. Celkini beckons him over and climbs on his shoulder so that she can sink the blade into the sleeping guards throat. He dies with a quiet gurgle AND NO YELLING.

They wake the others and get them out of the cells. After some deliberation and plans to possibly set the children on fire ("look at the flowers") as a distraction, they decide to leave the family behind and head into the room with the sarcophogi. There, the stone coffins slowly open and drauger rise from the crypts. Should they throw Asher at them? No, they run through a door to the north into a cramped hallway. The other door is locked, but Dweezil's stone sense finds a false door. They come out into the area they had discovered and partially explored before. They recognize it, knowing now that there is an escape just ahead if they can make it. But a voice in Celkini's mind stops her, politely asking for them to bring him the Red Brand they killed. The voice also speaks to Xavros, asking him to convince Celkini to get the food he's requested. Soon the voice is in everyone's head and it reveals that there are weapons to be had and that it is willing to help us if we help it. It's just... hungry...

We are poly-gamists

They say that coal under intense pressure makes diamonds. Well what kind of pressure makes glitter? The pressure of an army of enemies, the pressure of overwhelming PvP and PvEodds, the pressure of defeating that boss when all bets are against you. But when that pressure is on, we explode.Fabulously.